Plans for aer­i­al spray­ing to con­trol an out­break of dengue in Ch­agua­nas have crashed. Ch­agua­nas may­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar said the idea was shot down by Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan. The plan was to use a crop duster to spray aban­doned sug­ar cane fields with in­sec­ti­cides to con­trol the Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to.

Nages­sar said Khan told him the Min­istry of Health would not ap­prove the use of crop dusters which were used in the days of Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed to con­trol the spread of frog hop­pers, not mos­qui­toes. Khan sug­gest­ed that the bor­ough in­ten­si­fy its do­mes­tic spray­ing pro­gramme and ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives to en­sure peo­ple re­move con­tain­ers that can be breed­ing grounds for mos­qui­toes.

Nages­sar said peo­ple liv­ing near aban­doned cane fields have com­plained about mos­qui­toes. He said the aban­doned lands al­so serve as an il­le­gal dump for items that can be breed­ing grounds for mos­qui­toes.